A clear and strategic community marketing plan is the most important prerequisite to successfully execute any community marketing campaign. And, there are no second thoughts about it.
The best way to create it is by having a well-defined community marketing plan template in place that you can refer to each time.
There are five components that a community marketing plan template should comprise.
And we have talked about exactly those in this blog.
We’ve derived our learning by doing 1000+ community marketing campaigns with over 150+ brands like Dettol, Nestle, Pediasure, Veet, Unacademy, Amazon, and Plum, to name a few.😊
We have also shared a couple of community marketing plan templates of different brands to help you get started with your own.
Whether you’re a toddler nutrition brand, food brand, lifestyle brand, or any other, this guide on how to create a community marketing plan template will come in handy.
So, without losing another second, let’s jump straight into them!
How do you create an effective community marketing plan template?
1. Identify your brand’s objective
Just like the first step to building a solid community marketing strategy is defining your brand’s objective, it is also the first thing you must identify while preparing a community marketing plan template.
Choose from any of these objectives that you wish to achieve for your brand:
- Launch a new product
- Generate high-quality organic leads
- Build brand RTBs (Reasons to Believe)
- Do issue / moment / cause marketing
- Expand into a new market
- Manage crisis
- Research for a new product or concept
- Create a new product category and expand
Or add the objective that’s most relevant to you.
2. Define your brand category
Next, you need to define your brand’s niche – whether you fall into food, lifestyle, nutrition, electronics, skincare, or any other category.
That and your defined objectives will help curate your community marketing campaign idea.
For instance, you’re a food brand looking to launch a new product into the market. Your community marketing campaign will most likely consist of community contests because that works like a charm in food communities and would help achieve your KPIs easily.
Similarly, if you’re a skincare brand looking to build brand RTBs, your marketing campaign plan template must include expert-led live sessions, user testimonials with before and after images/videos, among other things.
3. Select your community marketing campaign idea
After you’ve defined your brand category and objective, it’s time to select the community marketing campaign idea you’d like to pursue.
You can choose from either of these campaign styles:
The campaign type you choose will purely depend on your niche and the objectives you wish to achieve.
If you’d like to learn more about either of these community marketing campaign ideas, you can refer to this blog 👇🏻
The ultimate guide to community marketing for 2022
4. Prepare your community marketing strategy
Once you’ve sought clarity on the aforementioned three things, you should go about preparing a community marketing strategy.
Your strategy should broadly answer the following questions:
- How do you plan to achieve your marketing objectives?
- How will you execute the campaign?
- How many phases will the campaign have?
- Will your campaign use a single content idea or it will combine multiple formats?
This will not only set all the necessary context but also help execute the campaign smoothly.
If you wish to understand in detail about how to create a community marketing strategy that sets you up for success, do read through this blog 👇🏻
Community marketing strategy – A complete guide
5. Define the key metrics you’d like to track
Lastly, it would help if you defined the key metrics that you will track to measure the success of your community marketing efforts.
Ideally, there are eight key metrics that help you measure the impact of your community marketing campaigns, and they are as follows:
- Category Conversations
Track the increase in conversations for a particular product category after the campaign is executed.
- Brand Mentions
Track the increase in the number of times a brand was mentioned across community conversations after the campaign is executed.
- UGC or User Generated Content
Track the original, brand-specific content done by customers and potential customers in communities and across social media channels during the campaign.
UGCs may appear in new posts, comments, images, videos, stories, or other formats.
- SOV or Share of Voice
This incredibly useful metric tells how your brand is faring compared to competitors. You can calculate SOV with this formula:
Number of times your brand was mentioned / Total brand mentions x 100.
- Sentiment Analysis
Gauge your customers and potential customers’ reactions to your brand or product, and comprehend their emotional tone to understand how satisfied / not satisfied they are with your product.
- Brand Associations
Track the number of conversations that are in any way associated with your brand. The idea is to look for intent-based conversations, i.e. around brand usage, benefits, and purchase and recommendations).
- Reactions and Comments
Keep a tab on the number of reactions and comments your brand posts (admin posts and distinct UGC posts done across the campaign duration) get in communities.
- Sampling Leads
If you’re doing surveys as a part of your campaign, track the total number of members who filled the survey you shared in the communities.
To know in detail about each of these metrics, kindly refer to this blog👇🏻
Top metrics to measure the success of your community marketing campaigns in 2022
Now that you have a clear understanding of the elements your community marketing campaign plan template should be based on, let’s look at some community marketing plan templates which will help you get going.
6 Community Marketing Plan Templates that will leave you inspired
TEMPLATE 1 – For brands looking to generate high-quality organic leads
Take the example of Pediasure, the number one toddler nutrition brand that generated 3700 relevant leads and 32K user-generated posts for its community marketing campaign.
| Primary Objective | Generate leads for their free counselling session |
| Secondary Objectives | – Create awareness around the new Pediasure that comes packed with growth nutrients like Arginine and Vitamin K12 – Help parents understand how these nutrients support a child’s growth |
| Brand Category | Toddler nutrition |
| Campaign Idea | Content Partnership and Community Challenge |
| Campaign Strategy | – The brand partnered with community admins and co-created content that helped community members understand about 60% of bone growth in a child’s early years and nutrition’s role in the overall growth of toddlers. It highlighted how new Pediasure contributes to a toddler’s development. – They also started a 90-day challenge wherein they introduced a growth tracker tool and encouraged members to track and monitor their child’s growth and progress. |
| Key metrics tracked | – Number of leads generated – Number of UGCs or user-generated content posts – Increase in category conversations – Increase in positive sentiment |
Know all about Pediasure’s community marketing campaign and understand the objectives, campaign strategy and key metrics in detail in this 👉🏻 CASE STUDY 👈🏻
TEMPLATE 2 – For brands looking to facilitate product trials or samples
Let’s look at how Unacademy, India’s largest online learning platform, got 1525 link clicks as part of its community marketing campaign, which indicates product trials amongst its users.
| Primary Objective | Encourage trials of the platform by subscription through JEE/NEET aspirants |
| Secondary Objectives | – Provide support to all those students looking to crack competitive exams – Create awareness of the Unacademy Learning Festival |
| Brand Category | Edtech |
| Campaign Idea | Content Partnership |
| Campaign Strategy | – The brand co-created content with community admins that aimed to create awareness of the Unacademy Learning Festival with amazing subscription offers amongst members. – Admins of student and parent communities shared their experiences and told how Unacademy is providing them with all the necessary resources and support for the preparation of the exam. They further encouraged community members to share their own experiences of the platform. |
| Key metrics tracked | – Number of link clicks – Increase in brand mentions – Brand associations – Total comments and reactions – Total UGCs or user-generated content posts |
To know all about Unacademy’s community marketing campaign and understand all about their objectives, campaign strategy and key metrics, you can check out this 👉🏻 CASE STUDY 👈🏻
TEMPLATE 3 – For brands looking to drive word-of-mouth advocacy
Let’s look at how Wella, the renowned German hair care brand specializing in hair care, styling and colourants, attracted 58% SOV (share of voice) and 8962 UGCs (indicative of a strong advocacy leg) through its community marketing campaign.
| Primary Objective | Create widespread acceptance of salon colouring and create word-of-mouth advocacy for Wella. |
| Secondary Objectives | – Get consumers back to salons (post the pandemic) after losing them to a host of at-home colourants that promise salon-like results at home – Understand women’s perceptions, biases, and fears towards adopting salon hair colour solutions |
| Brand Category | Beauty |
| Campaign Idea | Content Partnership and Surveys |
| Campaign Strategy | – The brand co-created content with the admins around the superiority of salon hair colour and built the superiority narrative with Wella as the preferred brand. – They hosted expert live sessions to bust all existing myths and address community members’ fears and perceptions around hair colouring. – The admins showcased their stunning makeover and shared moments from their hair colouring experience (that included before and after images/videos). |
| Key metrics tracked | – Increase in brand mentions – Increase in brand share of voice – Total UGCs or user-generated content posts |
To know all about Wella’s community marketing campaign and understand its objectives, campaign strategy and key metrics, you can check out this 👉🏻 CASE STUDY 👈🏻
TEMPLATE 4 – For brands looking to build their RTBs (Reasons to Believe)
Take the example of Baby Dove, a leading skincare and haircare brand designed especially for kids, that successfully increased brand mentions to 7.9K, the share of voice to 16.4%, and attracted around 6.9K UGCs. Of these, 71.5% of brand mentions were linked to trials, and 88% were strongly associated with the words ‘mild’ and ‘gentle’.
| Primary Objective | Drive consideration for their products and establish their association with ‘mildness.’ |
| Secondary Objective | Capture the attention of new mothers who constantly seek out safe and gentle skincare solutions for their newborn babies |
| Brand Category | Baby skincare & haircare |
| Campaign Idea | Content Partnership |
| Campaign Strategy | The brand co-created content with the admins and helped members understand how Baby Dove’s products are a natural solution to issues like redness, dryness, skin-flaking, etc. They also encouraged members to share their concerns about baby care and personal experiences with the product. |
| Key metrics tracked | – Increase in brand mentions – Increase in brand share of voice – Total UGCs or user-generated content posts – Brand associations |
To know all about Baby Dove’s community marketing campaign and understand all about their objectives, campaign strategy and key metrics, you can check out this 👉🏻CASE STUDY👈🏻
TEMPLATE 5 – For brands looking to create a new category and expand
Take the example of Veet, a well-known depilatory brand that effectively established its name in the teenage depilation segment and successfully achieved around 3K UGCs, 7.7K mentions, and 73.9% positive sentiment.
| Primary Objective | Increase brand awareness and build consideration highlighting brand benefits and USP |
| Secondary Objective | Drive conversations around teenage depilation |
| Brand Category | Personal hygiene |
| Campaign Idea | Content Partnership |
| Campaign Strategy Key metrics tracked | – The brand co-created content with the admins in the form of expert live sessions that addressed myths around: a. The different skin types b. Encouraged members to talk about teenage hair depilationc. Usage of hair removal creams in sensitive areas like underarms- The admins shared their personal experiences through images and videos, strengthening the brand’s association with its benefits and encouraging community members to share their stories.- Increase in brand mentions- Sentiment Analysis- Total UGCs or user-generated content posts- Brand association |
To know all about Veet’s community marketing campaign and understand all about its objectives, campaign strategy and key metrics, you can check out this 👉🏻 CASE STUDY 👈🏻
TEMPLATE 6 – For brands looking to expand into a new market
Let’s look at how Maggi, the leading instant noodles brand, successfully expanded its footprint in the spices category with its product – Maggi Masala-ae-magic. Through its community marketing campaign, the brand successfully generated 96K reactions and comments, 25K UGCs, and 53% positive sentiment for the product.
| Primary Objective | Position Maggi masala-ae-magic as the taste enhancer for every dish |
| Secondary Objective | Create awareness and build consideration for Maggi masala-ae-magic |
| Brand Category | Food |
| Campaign Idea | Community Contests |
| Campaign Strategy | The brand and community admins planned a recipe-sharing contest that the admins kickstarted. They shared their favourite food recipes prepared with Maggi masala-ae-magic and encouraged members to share their creations. They even urged members to tag others, creating further excitement around participation. |
| Key metrics tracked | – Total engagement (reactions and comments) – Total UGCs or user-generated posts – Sentiment Analysis |
To know all about Maggi’s community marketing campaign and understand all about their objectives, campaign strategy and key metrics, you can check out this 👉🏻 CASE STUDY 👈🏻
Summary
By means of these community marketing campaign plan templates, we’ve tried to cover the most common brand objectives and community marketing plans that you prepare to achieve them.
There are multiple ways to achieve the same objectives and the one you choose to go ahead with will depend on your niche.
Speaking of it, if you’d like to get access to a customized marketing plan word template for yourself, feel free to REACH OUT TO US. Our community marketing expert will help you out!
Or you can also get a tailored marketing plan templates free straight to your email address via our community marketing plan template free download tool. Just choose your brand objective, campaign idea, and strategy, and you’ll be able to get your hands on the most relevant community marketing plan template.
Creating value in the lives of others with my content, little by little.✨
Working at Convosight, I do more than just wrangle commas. I’m passionate about innovating new ways to create super valuable and actionable content about Communities and Community Marketing at large, and sharing it with the right audience.
I also happen to manage a global community of power admins on Facebook, and that’s where most of my learnings come from.
Do check out my latest blogs and feel free to share them! 💛